Great moments in the history of public education

The social justice mob does not confine their activities to income redistribution but have branched out into education redistribution as well.

An Ann Arbor elementary school principal used a letter home to parents tonight to defend a field trip for black students as part of his school’s efforts to close the achievement gap between white and black students.

Dicken Elementary School Principal Mike Madison wrote the letter to parents following several days of controversy at the school after a field trip last week in which black students got to hear a rocket scientist.

“In hindsight, this field trip could have been approached and arranged in a better way," Madison wrote. "But as I reflect upon the look of excitement, enthusiasm and energy that I saw in these children’s eyes as they stood in the presence of a renowned African American rocket scientist in a very successful position, it gave the kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them.

“It was not a wasted venture for I know one day they might want to aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.

“I also think it’s important that you know that I have talked to the children who did not go on the field trip, and I think they have a better understanding of the purpose of the AA Lunch Bunch now, as I hope you do. I’m sorry if any kids were upset by the field trip or my discussion afterwards with them, and I have let them know that.

“The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community.”

(italics, ours)

Much like our tax code which is progressive in nature, it appears Madison approaches education at his school in much the same manner by punishing the "privileged classes".

First of all, this idiot Madison should be fired. Yesterday.

Secondly, he does not apologize for this blatant discrimination whatsoever and in reality defends the indefensible. His intent is a moot point because he did indeed succeed in segregating and excluding students.

A handful of parents have complained to district administrators about the trip, the group and Madison. More than a half-dozen parents contacted AnnArbor.com to raise the complaints, but none would agree to talk on the record, citing concerns of reprisals to their children by Madison.

District spokeswoman Liz Margolis said after the trip was over, those who went returned to their fifth-grade class and were greeted by boos by those who didn’t go on the trip. Margolis said Madison, who is black, heard the boos, and went to talk to the class. She said he and the class had a “discussion” about race issues.

(italics, ours)

Because nothing says promoting race relations in school like intimidation and creating a divisive atmosphere in the class room.

And home-schooling gets a bad rap because of what?

H/T: The Silent Majority

Awww... (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom of post for update. Thanks.)


The whiner-in-chief is bummed about technology or something.

US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

He bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

(italics, ours)

Wasn't this supposed be the most tech-savvy president and presidential administration of all time? Wasn't Team Obama's alleged abilities to connect with young voters via social mediums like Twitter and FaceBook an oft-repeated meme' and big reason for his victory in 2008?

Maybe he's just venting because it was a crappy week.. and it was but his hey, I'm just a regular guy schtick rings hollow. Maybe he doesn't know how to use all that techy stuff as he claims but tough luck there, champ - when you're the hippest person to ever walk the planet, people are going to hold you to it.



(UPDATE #1): The irony of the hippest and most tech-savvy President evah going grumpy old man on us, shrouded the larger issue in his Hampton University commmencement address and that is his very curious take on the explosion of information that is now available to us because of the digital revolution is somehow bad for democracy.

Sure, there is the danger of facts being misrepresented and falsehoods being represented as truth but since when was any of that not the case? And we're looking at you, old state-controlled media.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out who the President is lashing out at as the second-to-last paragraph of the pull quote indicates (to wit, the right blogosphere has been opining on the possibility that the Gulf oil spill is Obama's Katrina. It's far to early to speculate and we'll wait until more facts are brought to light before we pass any judgement, if at all).

And in totally related news to the President having a tough time of late controlling the media narrative you'd be pleased to know that the FCC's Diversity Chief (the first position to suffer the budget axe in a BwD administration, btw) Mark Lloyd is a big fan of that champion of free speech and opposition politics, Hugo Chazez.

Two years ago, Lloyd stated, "In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution -- a democratic revolution. To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela." Lloyd also commented that when independent media outlets criticized Chavez's policies, the Venezuelan dictator "began to take very seriously the media in his country." Lloyd's comments came in the middle of Chavez's two-year run of closing down nearly every single privately-owned media outlet in Venezuela, thereby ending all criticism of the government.

A long but good read from the American Spectator, here, on just what is in store for the internet, TV, radio and free speech, in general, if the politically-appointed folks at the levers of power within the FCC get their way.

Google search engine item of the day

With a wide variety of options available, it would appear our Greek friends are most adept and exhibit quite an affinity for this particular behaviour.

Mirror image

Let's go down the list:

Ties to Chicago...? Check

Ties to Goldman Sachs...? Check

Ties to Harvard...? Check

Complete lack of experience...? Check


For the record, we're not expressly opposed to this nomination because of Kagan's never actually having sat on the bench, it's just that there is not an extensive paper trail on her to know how it is she will judge while sitting on the Supreme Court. And it's not like she's running for President or anything.

H/T: W.C. Varones

Ft. Hood

Some old news we are gettin caught up on:

The Obama administration said Tuesday it would provide more information to Congress about the Fort Hood shootings but continued to defy a subpoena request for witness statements and other documents.

After days of negotiations, the Pentagon and Justice Department informed a Senate committee that they would not comply with congressional subpoenas to share investigative records from the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., which killed 13 people. The agencies said that divulging the material could jeopardize their prosecution of Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the accused gunman.

The Pentagon did budge in other areas, however, saying it had agreed to give the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs access to Hasan's personnel file, as well as part of an Army report that scrutinized why superiors failed to intervene in Hasan's career as an Army psychiatrist, despite signs of his religious radicalization and shortcomings as a soldier.

Charge us with oversimplifying the matter in order to make a point, if you will, but what's the big deal here? Hasan, who was known to have had communications with a radical Yemeni cleric, murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers in the name of Islamic jihad at Ft. Hood. Hasan's blatant outward signs that he could possibly go rogue were routinely ignored by his superiors yet he was given the equivalent of public schooling social promotions by these same superiors for fear of crossing the boundaries of political correctness. This ia all public knowledge.

End of story. Beyond what we know already, what exactly is it that these subpoenas are going to reveal?

Welcome to the Party, boys!

Reading the Times editorial "Greece's Lessons for Us", you'd a thunk that they were regular readers of BwD. Listen to some of this stuff:

Greece's financial crisis recalls the folly of American home buyers who took out subprime loans to buy houses they couldn't afford, only to be stuck with a crushing debt when the real estate market collapsed. Thanks to a $146-billion bailout from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund, Greece won't be defaulting — at least not right away. But the aid package may just be the first in a series to bring the Eurozone back to financial health. And although the details differ, the outlines of Greece's woes are troublingly familiar.

Whether or not a series of bailouts will bring the Eurozone back to health is dubious but that first part about American homebuyers taking out subprime loans they couldn't afford? Double-checking to see if this really is our beloved L.A. Times.

Greece dug itself into a deep hole over the past decade, abetted by low interest rates and willing lenders. The government provided jobs and generous pensions to about one-quarter of the workforce, sacrificing productivity for social stability. After a recession sent the country's deficit soaring, lenders started to balk at the government's demand for credit, pushing Greece toward default.

We hardly knew ye.

The U.S. budget deficit and debt aren't up to Athenian levels. But like Greece, the U.S. government has committed to providing benefits that it cannot afford over the long term. Policymakers have seen the problems in Social Security and Medicare coming for years, but Congress has done little about them. If anything, lawmakers made the task more difficult with this year's healthcare reform law, which trimmed Medicare spending but dedicated the savings to a new healthcare insurance program for the working class.

Article finishes off with a screed about unsustainable public employee union pensions and some rantings about revenue not matching out-of-control spending.

We sincerely wish there was some gracious way the Times could walk back what could rightly be construed as an unseemly association with the unwashed mob but as you have just read, the West's paper of record has let the horse out of the barn and must now suffer the charges of "un-patriotic", "un-civil" and, of course, "racist" along with the rest of us.

Compassion happens

Since the onset of the great recession in 2008 we've been nagged by the statists of the liberal-left on how it all represented a failure of capitalism. How the greed and inherently corrupt nature of unbridled free markets plunged us into the fiscal mess we are struggling to emerge from.

So, does what is happening in Greece and the greater Eurozone represent a failure of socialism?

Free healthcare, free housing, mandatory employment are all wonderful things because they are "rights", correct? They're all rights, because a truly compassionate society would view them as nothing less, correct?

But the money to fund all those rights has to come from somewhere. Someone in that society that is a creator of wealth is footing the bill for those rights enjoyed by everybody else.

And here is the theoretical problem with that arrangement. That compassion becomes confiscatory meaning the more rights you willy-freaking-nilly start making up, the more of a burden you put on the wealth-creators in your society to fund those rights. Since those rights come in the form of mandatory goods and services, so to does the obtaining of the money to fund those rights becomes mandatory. In short, this is the slavery of socialism.

And the practical problem with this arrangement is that the more "rights" you start granting the people, the quicker the money runs out. Margaret Thatcher was right: the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. In a nutshell, this is what is happening in Greece and the greater Eurozone.

Against our nature, we've been pessimistic with regard to our economy fearing a double-dip recession as a result of the Obama regime's horribly misguided demand-side Keynesian gimmickry. Perhaps, though, we've been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe we, as an electorate, might look at the situation in Greece and take some heartfelt lessons-learned.

•The entitlement society is D-E-A-D, dead, dead, dead. It may thrash around a bit more, but it is dead. Here in the US, we'll continue to get Obama and Waxman and Frank and Pelosi pitching for more and more entitlements, but as wreckage and ruin spreads across Europe from demographic decay and socialist entitlements, only those who believe in compassion™ with religious faith will continue demanding more.

Read the rest of KT's post, here. We're still chewing on it but we dig the optimism and the implied faith in this country, though we stray off path from time to time, to eventually get things right.

Radio KBwD is on the air

We're not in trifling mood this afternoon, folks - we're going straight for the greasy kid stuff.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from our Pop Tarts, Ear Candy and Other Guilty Pleasures iPod playlist, it's XTC performing "Generals and Majors".
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The sadly obligatory kids-get-sent-home-from-school-for-wearing-American-flag-shirts-on-Cinco-de-Mayo post (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom for update)



By now you've probably heard about the 5 kids who got sent home from high school up in the Bay Area for wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Story here.

And from the last paragraph:

The boys will not be suspended and were allowed to return to school Thursday. We spotted one of them when he got to campus -- and, yes, he was sporting an American flag T-shirt.

And home-schooling gets a rap because of what? For the sake of these boys continuing education, a permanent expulsion may have been in their collective best interest.

The article explains that many of the Mexican-American students were "offended" that these 5 students would fly their colors on a "Mexican holiday". It's bad enough these particular students don't know American history, they don't know Mexican history, either. Cinco de Mayo, to our knowledge, is not a holiday that is celebrated in Mexico. And other than wearing goofy sombreros to and getting half-priced Margaritas at Mexican restaurants, it holds no real cultural significance here, either.

But above and beyond the obvious lunacy of this incident, it provides a nice peek inside Arizona's illegal immigration law outrage. There are legitimate concerns over racial profiling, however, one does not have to scratch far beneath the surface to get to the latent anti-Americanism that is hostile to freedom and liberty (two concepts not to be confused with license) and capitalism.

The major players against the law, groups like La Raza, are racialist, if not racist, in nature that bow before the twin gods of diversity and income redistribution. They hold complete antipathy and contempt for American exceptionalism that is rooted not in race but shared cultural values of the rule of law and property rights (what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours). These concepts are not only foreign to them, they are to be struggled against.

Ultimately, this is what's at stake. Not whether some people will be rounded-up illegally or unjustly harrassed but rather whether we allow a culture of lawlessness and 3rd world socialism to further erode our sound, just, equitable and hard fought-for American culture.

Don't allow yourself to be distracted from the big picture. Yes, the potential for abuse of this law, any law for that matter, is real - just ask Congress. However, the larger backdrop is a set of people who through racial guilt, intimidation and victimization are waging a war of "social justice" against those who hold dear the rule of law, property rights, freedom of speech and a belief that this country is not great because of its diversity but rather this country is diverse because of its greatness.


(UPDATE #1): We think we've determinend who it is that should've been suspended.

About 200 Hispanic teens are marching in Morgan Hill yelling "We want respect!" and "Si se puede!" in reaction to a controversy ignited when the Live Oak High School principal effectively sent four students home for wearing T-shirts with American flags on them during Cinco de Mayo.

Mexican-American students felt the students were being disrespectful on the only day they celebrate their heritage while students sporting red, white and blue said it violated their First Amendment rights.

Six police cars and a Morgan Hill motorcycle officer have been cruising alongside the large group as it marches.

The group - mostly high school students - walked out of school this morning after the story of four students who were sent home because they wore American flag T-shirts went viral on TV and online. Many wear red, white and green and two large Mexico flags can be seen at the front of the line.

The students say they want people to know they're proud of their heritage and they believe wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo is disrespectful.

Need any further proof of the culture war going on here and how the playing field is skewed against believers in American exceptionalism?

Wear a t-shirt with an American flag on it, get sent home. Walk out of school on the tax-payer dime, get a police escort.

And we're sure the irony of people exercising the 1st amendment in order to deny the 1st amendment to others is not lost on you.

Tales from Bailout Nation Pt. XXV

The hits, they just keep on coming...

Freddie Mac, the second-largest US mortgage finance company, said on Wednesday it would need an additional $10.6bn from the US Treasury Department to staunch losses on bad loans.

The company said it had lost $8bn, or $2.45 per share, in the first three months of 2010. The amount includes a $1.3bn dividend payment to the Treasury Department on senior preferred stock issued as part of a 2008 government-led bail-out. Along with larger rival Fannie Mae, Freddie is propping up the housing market by purchasing mortgages in the secondary market.

Since September 2008, both Fannie and Freddie have been operating under a legal framework known as conservatorship. Together they have eaten up $136bn in taxpayer money. The final bill could be much higher. The government has pledged to provide unlimited support to the companies over the next three years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that taxpayer aid could approach $400bn over the next decade, making the bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac far more costly than the rescue of big Wall Street banks.

In spite of government-led efforts to modify mortgages, foreclosures continue to mount. As a result, Freddie Mac said writedowns on uncollectible loans on single-family residences had totalled $2.8bn in the period, compared with $2.4bn in the fourth quarter of 2009. Delinquencies on those residences rose slightly to 4.13 per cent as of March 31, compared with 3.98 per cent as of December 31.

(italics, ours)

Gee, do you think perhaps that it's precisely because of government-led efforts we're still in this mess? Precisely, how is enticing bad risks to stay in bad loans good for the housing market?

Of course, don't expect the Feds to change course because as they are spending your money, there is absolutely no incentive to step back and take a look at this in a rational manner and possibly come to the conclusion that their actions are simply exacerbating the situation.

As the article states (and as we covered the Christmas Eve Dump), the federal government is all in with respect to bailing out Fannie and Freddie and they will continue to dump money into both ad infinitum, ad nauseum.


Exit question: For two entities which will collectively cost us more than the eeeeevil Wall St. financial firms, where is the outrage from Congress or this administration?

Suffer for their art?

Not Comedy Central.

The new (proposed) cartoon series depicting Jesus Christ living in New York city that is being pitched by Comedy Central proves our point that they are completely spineless and hypocritical.

We couldn't understand all the praise being heaped upon Comedy Central for their alleged edginess and risk-taking. This latest development confirms their risk-taking is highly selective.

Worthless pukes.